Transcription of Mike and Wendy Taylor for the show Treasures from the Sea #161
Dr. Lisa: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast show number 161, Treasures from the Sea, airing for the first time on Sunday, October 12, 2014.
Maine is home to miles of inviting coastline which gives us proximity to our prolific ocean whose treasures are many. The benefits of the sea go beyond swimming, sailing and fishing. Today, we speak with Dr. Mike and Wendy Taylor, developers of Ocean Elements skin care products and Tollef Olson, whose company, Ocean Approved, harvest nutrient rich sea vegetables for eating. Listen to our conversation and understand what treasures the sea has to offer. Thank you for joining us.
On today’s show, we have two individuals who discuss things that are really very close to my heart as a physician and as an individual. They wrapped together things like community health, public health but also environmental health and physical health. Today we have with us Dr. Michael Taylor, who is a retired dermatologist, who’s had a career long interest in public health, international health and community medicine. His wife, Wendy Taylor began her career in long-range planning, market research, marketing planning and marketing management in large financial institutions in Chicago and Colorado.
The husband and wife team later founded Konbit Sante Cap-Haitien Health Partnership more recently and the reason why we have them on the studio today, they founded Bright Water Bay Science LLC, a Maine-based company whose focus is on skin health. Ocean Elements is a Bright Water Bay Science brand and in May of this year, they introduced the first product, a daily moisturizer with an SPF of 30. Welcome into the studio.
Michael: Thank you for having us. Thanks Lisa.
Dr. Lisa: We’ve had a chance to speak with Nate Nickerson of Konbit Sante and also Deb Dietrich has spoken about your organization as well, so I wanted to start with that because it’s something that I’m fascinated by. You’ve done this for quite a long time. As a dermatologist and somebody who does work in marketing and long-range planning, I wonder if you can tell me why was that you thought that this was important to you?
Michael: It was 2000 that we founded Konbit Sante. It grew out of a belief that we had resources here in the greater Portland area that would be useful and willing. To help out in underdeveloped areas of the world if we could put together a structure that would support the volunteers as they provided their services.
Both of us had had experiences in medical missions being dropped in for a week, taking blood pressures, getting some medicines and feeling as though we had done wonderful things and then abandoning our patients there. They went back to the way they were before. What struck us during one of our missions was a nurse, a very caring nurse who ran up to us and said I just diagnosed a woman with diabetes. She had a blood sugar of 400. Wendy and I looked at one another and said, “Have we done anybody any good by being here?”
This was in the Dominican Republic because there are no needles, there are no syringes, there are no public health nurses to train individuals on how to take care of their diabetes, no strips to check the urine, really nothing. We thought wow this really isn’t very useful. We have to, if we’re going to do anything and use our time and resources, we have to develop a method that’s sustainable. We have to partner with a community over the long haul to support them so that the individuals, the professionals who live in that community can provide better services.
Actually, trying to create a sustainable program rather than just dropping in and leaving feeling that we’ve done some good. We gathered thought leaders in the community, not just the sessions but Dominic Towell who was then president of Maine Medical Center, Jim Moody, who was president of Hannaford, Dom Nickel who is a planner and had worked originally with Ed Muskie.
We really tried to get people who would give us honest, good advice as well as several physicians. We met in our dining room for seven or eight months on a monthly basis and got things going and found not to our surprise that I mean Portland is a wonderful community. I could just talk about Portland but we found not to our surprise that there were many people who wanted to participate and would participate if the structure were such that they could be supported which required finding a hotel, transportation, making sure about immunizations, forming the relationships but it’s really been successful. I suspect you know Eva Lathrop. Eva was one of our first volunteers and she’s incredibly involved.
Wendy: Eva Lathrop has been really instrumental in getting a women’s health program going in Cap-Haitien, working with a powerful OB/GYN there where they formed a fast friendship as well as a collegial relationship of which has resulted so far in bringing local healthcare workers into the healthcare system. The matrons who delivered 85% of the babies at home in the community had no training to speak of. They were the ones who people trusted and they didn’t know what to do if they ran into a problem delivering.
Eva and Dr. [Telemark 00:09:28], her colleague, developed a program to bring those people in and train them and connect them to the medical community so that they would improve birth outcomes and they’ve continued to do that to take healthcare out into the community. As you probably know, Eva was a Peace Corps volunteer in Malawi and she still travels to Haiti as well as to Africa. She does it on a regular basis. She has taken her little baby girl with her since she was less than a year old.
Dr. Lisa: It sounds like doctors are continuing to want to do good things in the greater global community and you set up a structure that enables them to do this and feel supported.
Michael: Yes.
Dr. Lisa: How did the two of you … I know this is somewhat personal but how did the two of you meet and come to understand that you both were able to offer something in a relationship that would really be of benefit to the greater good.
Michael: You can talk about how we met.
Wendy: We met like most people meet. We were introduced and found out we had mutual friends. It wasn’t till we had been married for a while.
Michael: We were introduced by her mother. I was preapproved.
Wendy: He was preapproved by my mother. But it was later, I think I’ve worked briefly in Michael’s office when he was between office managers and I quickly realized I did not have the skills or the background to do that for very long but we did hire someone else who stayed with the practice for years and was wonderful. The Haiti project, I guess we just decided over the dinner table that we were going to put a toll on the water and try it, get some people together, talk about it and see what happened. We have a good working relationship. We have interesting dinner conversations.
Michael: We work well together. We were married when we went to the Dominican Republic on a medical mission. I think both of us concluded after that experience that there were really wonderful human beings who wanted to give of themselves but it required a structure for that to happen in the proper way. I mean Iris isn’t the only one. There are several but there are many more that are dead ended. We decided together at that time that we were young and foolish. We said well I think we can do this better. I think we can set it up so that it’s sustainable, so that it has broad community support. I mean, we’re a sister city. We’ve had the priest from the cathedral, Father Jim. Do you remember father Jim?
Dr. Lisa: I do.
Michael: Father Jim came down with us to Haiti. He then brought up the priest from Cap-Haitien who gave mass and sermon at the cathedral. We felt that not just medical professionals but the whole community would probably want to participate in a helpful way if there were mechanisms so we did this together after that experience. I think it had occurred during a conversation. We said well we could probably do this so we gave it a try.
Dr. Lisa: You’re on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast. We’ve long recognized the link between health and wealth. Here to speak more on the topic is Tom Shepherd of Shepherd Financial.
Tom: Sometimes I meet with married or partnered clients and when we get to talking about their financial lives, a cultural divide bubbles to the surface. One person feels one way about their money and the other seems to be on their own financial island where the set of beliefs and rules that have created unnecessary borders and boundaries. It’s not an uncommon thing.
When I hit those situations, I do my best to help both people understand that neither is 100% right or wrong, that they simply have to take a step back and look at their own financial life in a new light. It is also true in politics and economics. What we need to do is see money as a living thing that can be used to grow our lives together without disagreement or so-called border issues. It’s a great feeling for me. It’s like I’m helping people negotiate peace treaties with their money. Be in touch if you want to know more, tom@shepherdfinancialmaine, we’ll help you evolve with your money.
Speaker 1: Securities offered through LPL financial member FINRA SIPC. Investment advice offered through Flagship Harbor Advisors, a registered investment advisor. Flagship Harbor Advisors and Shepherd Financial are separate entities from LPL Financial.
The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is brought to you by Bangor Savings Bank. For over 150 years, Bangor Savings has believed that the innate ability of the people of Maine to achieve their goals and dreams, whether it’s personal finance, business banking or wealth management assistance you’re looking for, at Bangor Savings Bank, you matter more. For more information, visit www.bangor.com
Dr. Lisa: Let’s talk about your newest endeavor which I know is going to be successful because the other one was. Why wouldn’t this one be?
Michael: Well, each has its own challenges.
Dr. Lisa: Of course it does but this is very exciting to me. This is Bright Water Bay Science. You’re focusing on skin health which of course is your background, Dr. Taylor, in dermatology. Ocean Elements is part of the Bright Water Bay Science brand and you now have a daily moisturizer with an SPF of 30. There’s an interesting story behind this and there’s an interesting Maine connection. I want to ask Wendy about this.
Wendy: Well, Michael retired from his dermatology practice several years ago and I think spent one month collecting the books he intended to read going on road trip with a guy friend and doing a little meditation. At the end of a month, he said I have to do something else. That was the brief retirement of Dr. Taylor.
One thing led to another and we started talking about skin cancers and photo protection and why can’t someone come up with a product that really is a multipurpose, multitasking product that people will use on a daily basis like moisturizers that actually nourishes the skin but also protects it. We were saying people have such bad attitude about anything that’s called a sunscreen because they assume it’s going to be sticky, smelly unpleasant, it’ll creep and itch and get into your eyes and that was sort of the beginning of the conversation.
Michael: When I was in practice, I suggest to individuals that they try a couple, go to pharmacy and try a couple and first of all determine which one they would use and then check what was in it and so forth. For us, that became a primary thing. We wanted to based on our experience during the screening, wanted to use marine ingredients as much as possible if they would provide legitimate benefit to the product. Being in Maine, we were really fortunate to have access to information.
Dr. Lisa: Tell me about that and why it was important to use Marine ingredients.
Michael: They’re ubiquitous, they’re available. We wanted to promote Maine. That was a side goal for us was to promote Maine and we haven’t done that yet. Truth right out there, the marine ingredients that are in our product are sourced by the manufacturer. We are a small start-up and we don’t have the financial or historical clout to persuade the manufacturer to look beyond their traditional sources.
Our intention was to use Maine sources and it will be in the future if we continue going, we’ll have enough ability to do that. If you look around at how natural products are discovered, most of them are close by. People look at rosehips and say okay vitamin C. We haven’t explored the ocean for all of the possibilities and there is a treasure trove out there. When I started doing my research, it became clear that there were tons of effective antioxidants. There is a coral that actually creates a photo protective barrier and you find it only on the highest points of the coral closest to the surface of the water. It has an effect of SPF value. There are many things there and the more research we did, the more we found out.
Dr. Lisa: Wendy, can you talk to me about some of the trends that you seen in skincare?
Wendy: Sure. There are several things that we’re seeing right now as trends in skincare. First and foremost, I think people are becoming more concerned about what’s in a products they use and what’s in the products they use in their children. Secondly, people are becoming increasingly aware of potential damage from sun exposure, aware of skin cancers but also aware of photo aging, potential damage, wrinkles, fine lines, dark spots.
That’s interesting to people of all ages, not just to older people who are already experiencing them but also the younger people who would like to avoid the problems. A third trend we’re seeing that as people mature, they’re increasingly concerned about the appearance and the health of their skin and they become interested in antiaging products and routines. This translates into a growing interest in antiaging products but not just among older women. We’re seeing it among younger women now too. The other thing that we’re seeing is that this interest in antiaging products is not just among women. We’re starting to see more men.
Michael: I just wanted to comment on one thing and that is and this would interest you as a family physician. There was a recent study of teenage girls. They showed a movie of the effect of sunlight in creating skin cancer to one group. They showed some pretty awful erosive lesions on the face. Then they took a separate group of teenage girls and they showed them a movie on the effect of aging of sun exposure with blotchy skin, wrinkles, sags. Then after that, they gave them sunscreen and watched. It was an observer study who use sunscreen. Guess who? Not the ones who saw the skin cancer. Their use stay the same but the teenage girls who saw aging consequences, their use went up. As a dermatologist who has preached about the risks of skin cancer for years and while not ignoring certainly not emphasizing the antiaging, I’ve been headed in the wrong direction for decades.
Dr. Lisa: I think that that’s a very important point and one that in medicine, we are only just starting to understand is that people don’t want to get cancer. They don’t want to get heart disease. They don’t want all these bad things but at the same time they want to see some benefit to what they’re doing and they want to know that there’s going to be some physical positive impact so as opposed to avoiding things always which is a very fear-based approach, I think embracing things that enable us to be healthier and more well longer. That’s something in medicine that’s really a fairly relatively young idea. This is something that you’re trying to do with your moisturizer. What are your plans for other products?
Wendy: We have several products that are on our possible wish list. The one that is coming up next is a night product that rejuvenates and repairs. We’re in the process and it also has some marine ingredients in it. We are in the process of finalizing that formula and doing some testing. We’re doing both scientific testing in California in a scientific laboratory there. We’re also doing some consumer testing here.
Dr. Lisa: One of the reasons that you became so interested in marine products, do I understand this correctly, is that you are noticing that the hands of people who worked around the water, fishermen for example tended to be nice and bright and free of aging.
Michael: I was doing a skin cancer screening up at the Fishermen’s Forum. They have them every February at the Samoset. Actually the nursing school at USM has promoted this. I was just one participant with them. But during that, one of the wives who was with her husband said when he harvests seaweed, his hands are nice and smooth and moist and his friends who are fishermen and lobster men have rough hands with cuticles that are broken. They admitted that harvesters of seaweed have smooth hands.
I began to research it and Laminaria digitata which is a seaweed common to Maine, it’s the brown, long, flat seaweed, has a moisturizing components. It’s actually hydrophilic so even after you put it on, it absorbs moisture from the air and maintains that. It’s a great moisturizer. There is a gentleman by the name of Tollef Olson who farms laminaria digitata off Chebeague Island. He came in and confirmed that and demonstrated it.
As I did more research, there was one plastic surgeon New York who used it for wound healing successfully. That really … I said, well if there’s something like this that’s legitimate, it’s effective and people will use it, has scientific evidences to why it should work, there must be other things so I began real research for about a year and half of different marine ingredients, many dead ends, many wonderful ingredients that I just couldn’t obtain. They aren’t manufactured but we ended up with five very good ones that hydrate and rejuvenate. One of them has a photo protective feature about an SPF of five. It’s not high enough but it supplements. There are other things out there that we’ll still keep looking for.
Dr. Lisa: Meanwhile, the proceeds from your moisturizer and other things that are yet to be put together in your brand, 50% of them are going to go to benefit environmental and public health nonprofits.
Michael: Correct.
Dr. Lisa: So 10% will be Konbit Sante.
Michael: Correct.
Dr. Lisa: 10% will be the sister organization down in Haiti, is that right?
Michael: Correct.
Dr. Lisa: Then other ones I think are still …
Michael: Sure. We’re going to have the equivalent of a little foundation to support environmental and health nonprofit organizations. It probably eventually will be more than 50%. But at the moment, quite truthfully, we’re self-funded and we’ve made very little money so far so we really do want to pay ourselves back or at least pay a part of it back before we go off saving the world with our resources. But you’re right, 50% of it right off the top and one of the consultants in San Francisco, Peter Elias has been head of our scientific advisory board, he’s giving 5% which is all we would’ve given him to nonprofits. It’s sort of the ethos of the organization.
Dr. Lisa: I’m excited to try this myself. I haven’t yet but I’m excited to. I know that people who are listening will want to try your new moisturizer from Ocean Elements which is your Bright Water Bay Science brand. Also, we will want to learn more about Konbit Sante. How do people learn about all of these things that you two are doing, all of these wonderful things that you’re bringing to the world?
Wendy: We have a website at oelements.com and that website has the background story of how the product and future products3 developed, has tried to be very open about what’s in the product, what’s in our packaging and what isn’t in our packaging which is important and it also lists where the product can be bought. We love it when people buy online but we have some excellent retailers who are doing a great job of helping us get the word out.
The product is now available in Maine at 19 or perhaps 20. By today, retailers from York to Boothbay Harbor including the Cape Arundel Inn, Blackpoint Inn in Scarborough, the Inn At Cuckolds Lighthouse in South Port Maine, Migis Lodge in Casco, Mim on a Whim in Ogunquit, Allen Sterling & Lothrop in Falmouth, Apothecary By Design in Portland and Nine Stones Spa in Portland. There are several here. I’m sorry if I’ve missed anybody. We also have Spoil Me in Falmouth and one of our favorite places on the weekends, the North Creek Farm inPhippsburg.
Dr. Lisa: How do people find out about Konbit Sante?
Wendy: Konbit Sante has a great website at www.konbitsante.org.
Dr. Lisa: I’m impressed with all the work that you’ve done. It sounds like you’ve been very thoughtful about not only the products that have … Not only the things that have gone into your products also the packaging surrounding the products and where the proceeds which because I know this will be successful and I know that you will have lots of proceeds because everybody who’s listening is going to go out and buy some of this product so where the proceeds will go to.
I appreciate what you’re doing and really trying to use all of your skills and talents as individuals and as a couple to bring this great work into the world. Thank you. We’ve been speaking with Dr. Michael Taylor and his wife Wendy Taylor about the Konbit Sante Cap-Haitien Health Partnership and also their newly founded Bright Water Bay Science, a Maine-based company and their Ocean Elements Bright Water Bay Science brand. We are very appreciative of your coming in.
Michael: Thank you.
Wendy: Thank you.